More Robot Wars system mechanics

Costs

Most stats are bought on a sliding cost scale. The base cost to do so is as per the table below.

Level 1 - 1 CP - Hobbyist
Level 2 - 3 CP - Amateur
Level 3 - 6 CP - Trained
Level 4 - 10 CP - Professional
Level 5 - 15 CP - Skilled Professional
Level 6 - 21 CP - Experienced Professional
Level 7 - 28 CP - Expert
Level 8 - 36 CP - Master
Level 9 - 45 CP - Ancient Master
Level 10 - 55 CP - Superlative

In short, the base cost to improve a stat costs (current level + 1). Depending on the stat being bought, this may be multiplied as follows.

Attributes have a x5 multiplier.
Specializations have a multiplier of (2 + 1 for every additional specialization in the same attribute)
Skills have a variable multiplier. If no value is listed, it has a multiplier of 2.

Attributes & Specializations

These are the defining 'hard' characteristics of your character. Attributes are basic dice pools, whereas Specializations are added in specific situations.

Physique

This is the raw physical prowess of your character while she is on her own two feet, governing everything from strength, agility, endurance, athleticism and general toughness.
Available specializations for Physical are:

Dextrous

Big

Fit

Smarts

Your innate intelligence, as well as your ability to notice things and act on your feet.
Available specializations for Smarts are:

Quick-Witted

Intelligent

Perceptive

Charisma

Charisma measures the likeability of your character in several ways. Although few player characters are anything but superior in physical attractiveness, those with high Charisma do tend to be the coolest or hottest, and they do tend to sell more figurines.
Available specializations for Charisma are:

Attractive

Manipulative

Friendly

Aleph

Alephs (or colloquially, Newtypes) are, depending on whom you ask, the next stage in human evolution, an ability gained due to the invaders, their faith in God, or something that has been with us all along. Your character's Aleph rating governs her access to "magical" abilities.
Available specializations for Aleph are:

TBD (role-specific)

Skills

Skills are things your character has learned how to do. Swordsmanship, spellcasting, accounting, monster ranching, all are skills. Skills are broken into various groups, depending on what attribute or specialization they are controlled by. Unless otherwise noted, a skill may not be higher than its controlling attribute + specialization.

Somatic

This includes things like swordsmanship, fistfighting, track and field training and null-gravity movement.

Athletics

Brawl/Martial Arts

Melee

Firearms

Legerdemain

Stealth

Endurance

Zero-G

Drive

Pilot (3); rolls Physique + Quick-Witted; this skill covers conventional joystick-and-footpedal piloting schemes.

Gunnery (3); rolls Physique + Perceptive; this skill covers the use of weapons on mecha and fightercraft that require both a keen eye and twitch reflexes.

Mecha Fighting; this skill covers mecha-scale melee and unarmed.

Academic

This is intellectual skills, ranging from mundanities like mecha engineering or accounting and languages to exotica such as infometric theory and ancient history.

Awareness

Investigation

Academics (Field)

Bureaucracy

Computer (3); this skill deals with complex programming and infosecurity tasks.

Engineering (Field)

Medicine

Strategy (3)

Tactics

Security; this skill deals with mundane security systems, both setting them up and avoiding them.

Artillery (3); this skill covers large fixed weapons that use computerized targeting systems, exemplified by the batteries on warships or heavyweight missiles.

Remote Operation (3); this skill covers the operation of remotely-piloted craft, ranging from recon drones to mobile dolls. The maximum skill level (Pilot, Gunnery) usable via remote operations is 2x the Remote Operations skill level. Remote Operation can also replace Pilot. The key roll here is Smarts + Quick Witted

Neural Interfacing (3); this skill acts similar to Remote Operation, except it covers mecha piloted via direct neural interfaces. The key roll here is Smarts + Perception

Electronic Warfare (3)

Social

How to make friends, exude good impressions and sleep with that hot White Rose princess.

Red Tape

Intimidation

Interrogation

Subterfuge

Politics

Savoir-Faire

Command

Etiquette

Performance (Field)

Aleph

Aleph skills center around training the still poorly-understood abilities of Alephs.

Telepathic Weapons (3)

TBD?

Resolution Rules

Fundamentals

Dice pools are in D10s, and for every roll being made, they are Specialization + Skill. In all cases, add the core Attribute to the Specialization.

Thus, a sword would be Dexterity + Melee, so in practice it would be Physique + Dexterity + Melee skill.

For most tasks the target number will be 6 to score a success, but many things may modify this up or down. Note that positive modifiers increase the target number and are thus bad whereas negative modifiers decrease the target number and are thus good.

From the top, with Giant Robots

Mecha and other war machines are unsurprisingly a core part of More Robot Wars and have their own statlines, and for the following section 'Mecha' can be taken to read as any vehicle-sized object such as tanks, airplanes, giant robots, etc. Starships and similarly-sized entities are broadly similar with a few additional rules to reflect their size.

Mecha Stats

The following stats are the core values for mecha and serve to describe the platform itself.

Agility: Agility is a measure of how responsive a mecha is to its controls. Agility adds a positive modifier to to-hit rolls made against the mecha, as pilots will naturally take advantage of a machine's agility to avoid shots. Agility also adds a negative modifier for melee attacks' to-hit rolls.

Speed: Speed is a measure of how fast a mecha moves. Speed can also be used for Energy Maneuvering (see Special Moves below).

Strength: Strength is a measure of how strong a mecha is. It acts as a negative modifier for melee damage and additionally is the size limit for any non-fixed weapons - weak mecha can't exactly carry around 500mm hyper mega autorails.

Electronics: This is a measure of the generalized onboard electronic gear of a mecha, ranging from sensors to targeting equipment to ECM. See the Special Moves section for the full effects of Electronics.

Stealth: This is a measure of how difficult a vehicle is to detect with sensors. See Special Moves for more detail.

Armor: Armor is a measure of how difficult is it to breach the physical defenses of a mecha. Armor subtracts from the damage inflicted by weapons strikes.

Durability: Durability is a measure of how resilient a mecha is to internal damage. More durable mecha can fight longer.

Carrying: This is a value for how much 'stuff' a mecha can carry externally, such as mecha-scale assault rifles, missile packs, sensor pods, etc etc. Most giant robots and aircraft have high carrying values as they use externally-fitted weapons. Carried weapons and systems provide flexibility, but the downside is that they are much easier to lose.

Weapon Stats

Weapons have their own distinct statline with several values as follows.

Accuracy: Accuracy is a measure of how easy it is to hit with a weapon, and it adds a negative modifier to to-hit rolls.

Burst: Burst is a measure of how fast a weapon can fire and adds its value to the dice pool on to-hit rolls.

Slow: This is for weapons with extremely long cooldown periods; a weapon with Slow must wait for that many rounds to fire again.

Range: This is how far the weapon can fire accurately. Going up to double this imposes a -2 Accuracy modifier, tripling -4, so on.

Penetration: Penetration is the dice pool rolled to penetrate Armor on a successful hit.

Strength: Strength is how much additional Durability damage a weapon can inflict. Generally speaking, Strength correlates to explosive power/area of effect; Strength 0 is pure kinetic/energy impact and increasing levels represent some form of explosive effect.